


Relations

by perpetualjoy (optijoy)



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Gen, Layton Brothers, mystery room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/optijoy/pseuds/perpetualjoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfendi Layton has tea with his father. Their relationship is... strained, to say the least. (Spoilers for Mystery Room.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relations

"How nice of you to take time off to have tea time with your son," Alfendi said, bending over to mix his tea. He avoid eye contact with his father, who insisted on wearing that ridiculous top hat even when it was horribly out of style.

And he wasn't even _bald_ , which somehow made the whole top hat situation worse. _A gentleman must always wear a hat_ , his father would say.

Probably the reason why Al never seemed to get around to wearing a hat. 

"Just wanted to see how your new partner was doing, son," Hershel Layton said, sipping his tea with his beady eyes closed.

Al was glad, for the millionth time, that he inherited his looks from his mother and not his feather.

"She's a bit slow, but who isn't?"

"The Commissioner said you've been doing much better since you two started working together."

"Are you spying on me, Professor Layton?" Al managed to spit out before he felt himself being suppressed by the other guy. He didn't know who he hated more--his father or the Other Guy. 

"I'm really very sorry about that," Al said, wiping his brow. 

His father didn't answer for a while. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been checking in on you. I was just worried, is all." 

"Lucy really is a very nice girl. She's extremely brilliant and always finds the right person in the end."

Hershel continued to sip his tea.

"She's so kind, too. Never gave up on me even though I was _sure_ I'd killed that Makepeace."

You _were sure._ I _knew I was innocent all along,_ he could hear the Potty Prof thinking.

"No matter your personality, a son of Layton could never _kill_ a person."

"Oh, you're not concerned about _my_ welfare, it's just that a real gentleman doesn't have sons in jail, correct, _Father_?"

Derision coated the familial term like a thick film of rubber cement.

"It's lucky, then, that your partner refused to give up on you," Layton said.

"Yes, very lucky. Especially since I was giving myself up like a lamb to slaughter. I can't believe my memory led me wrong," Al said softly. It was getting harder to keep the "Potty Prof," as Lucy called him, suppressed.

Lucy liked him better when he was kind; and who could blame her? The Other Guy threatened to kill her, or at least fatally wound her, for not knowing the answer to a rather complex problem. 

 _Yes, but she knows and we both know that_ I'm _the original,_ a thought bubbled up from inside of him. _Ergo, when I'm fixed, I'll be what's left._

"This is a ludicrous argument," Al said aloud.

"It's what?" his father asked.

Al exhaled deeply and then took a sip of his tea. It was too strong.

"Admit it. You like the new me better than the old one," Al said, this time staring his father right in the eyes.

Or as well as he could manage through his bangs. 

"I love you as you are."

"But the Other Guy's a gentleman. He'd probably wear a hat if you asked him to."  

 _We both know I have a deep aversion to hats,_ he could hear the Other Guy thinking. 

"You'd wear a hat if Lucy asked you to." 

 _As would you_. 

"I wear a hat regardless of what a woman advises me to do," Layton said, puzzled.

"I wasn't talking to you!" Al snapped.

"Alfendi, it deeply worries me that you haven't gotten this split personality under control, now that you know what's caused it." 

"It's just so difficult to go about rewiring your own brain when the last time it happened you were extremely vulnerable and in a coma."

"How _does_ your hair do that?" Layton tapped the rim of his teacup with a finger. "It reminds me of a…"

"If you say puzzle, I will commit patricide without a single thought."

"I see." Hershel Layton sat back in his chair. "Are you afraid of losing this new, timid part of your personality?"

"I'm leaving," Al announced and threw some money on the table. More than enough to cover the price of the tea.

As he walked home, he could hear the Other Guy thinking, _You're afraid Lucy won't like you without me._

 _But I'm_ real _._

_Yes. Yes, that is the problem, isn't it? She prefers me. And you're "real." I suppose we both have something the other wants._

_She likes me, too._

_She's_ afraid _of you._

_Not anymore._

_She still calls you the Potty Prof._

_I hate you._

_Yes. Yes, I suppose you would._  

Alfendi Layton continued to walk home in the darkness only pierced by streetlights, thinking about what his father said. He wouldn't admit it, but he _was_ afraid of becoming full Mr. Hyde all the time, even if, unlike Dr. Jekyll, the Mr. Hyde was his real personality.

He was even more loathe to admit that his reluctance may have something to do with a woman. But there it was. That was the plain, undeniable truth, one he didn't have to unearth using deduction or fancy detective techniques.

He more than admired a girl, and his greatest competition was... none other than himself. 


End file.
